from the conflicts-of-interest dept

We were a bit surprised last week to hear that a court in the Netherlands had ruled that the Dutch Pirate Party had to censor itself, when it came to explaining to people how to use proxies to get around The Pirate Bay block. At some point such censorship needs to be seen as a fundamental violation of human rights. If you are going to block a website, that's one thing. But blocking a political party from demonstrating the ridiculousness of such a block by ordering them not to talk about it? You're just asking for trouble.

However, we should have remembered that we've seen this kind of thing in the past in the Netherlands. A couple years ago, a court blocked the usenet community site FTD. FTD did not host any infringing content. It did not offer torrents of any infringing content. It was simply a community offering that some people used to post information on where you could find infringement. And for that, it was blocked. And yet... some people noticed at the time that the judge in that case taught "anti-piracy" classes, where the person running the events was the lawyer representing the entertainment industry in that same case.

You can smoke weed in the Netherlands.

Re: You can smoke weed in the Netherlands.

Actually the funny thing is that The Netherlands is one of those (the few?) countries where downloading movies and music is completely legal. I exercise that right daily on usenet and am quite happy about it. The problem with torrents, and thus TPB, according to some judges, is that by default these clients also upload, which is illegal -- since uploading is the illegal part where you actually publish the work without holding the rights to it. Downloading torrents (both the torrent itself and the referred-to file) is legal when you disable any uploading in your client. Hence it is quite surprising that TPB is deemed illegal to begin with -- the reasoning is that they facilitate uploading. (All this reminds me of that pulp fiction speech in the car)

Re: You can smoke weed in the Netherlands.

Yes, the Dutch can smoke weed in The Netherlands, foreigners now have to get it from streetdealers, as they are barred from coffeeshops (at least from the ones in the south of NL). Which is another 'great' idea by our government.

We also are allowed to download software from illegal sources, just don't upload that floppy.

Theoretical:

Perhaps we could get a lawsuit brought against the judge for copying/infringing on his previous judgments. As they were (apparently) opinion pieces and arguably work-for-hire, the judge doesn't have the rights to copy them.

Corrupt is the content industry's middle name

How do you think they even get travesties like the DMCA, PROTECT-IP, SOPA introduced? How do you think they manage to get people acting on behalf of government to conduct ACTA or TPP in secret? How do you think they get real stakeholders to be excluded from congressional hearings? How do you think they get last minute amendments snuck into bills late in the night when nobody is looking? How do you think they get copyright extended to life + 90 years and then think that is not enough? How do you think they get government to take down Megaupload the day after SOPA fails? How do you think they get innocent foreign domain names seized for over a year with nothing happening? I could go on and on.

WTF is wrong with the world

This whole idea is pathetic blocking the pirate bay.... THE GOVERNMENT IS NOT GOING to stop internet piracy.... "WE THE INTERNET PIRATES" are too many and too vast stand up people they cant stop us all we are everywhere WHY ARE WE LETTING THEM WIN if all of us stand up and fight for what we believe in we can thwart the MONEY behind this BULLSHIT scandal to destroy internet piracy... WE ARE NOT THIEVES WE ARE NOT CRIMINALS, WE DEMAND !FREE! ACCESS TO DATA I WANNA TRY MY GODDAMN SHIT BEFORE I PAY FOR IT FOR FUCK SAKES. If a company makes a program i wanna use it b4 i shell out up to $400 for an image editing program "cough" PHOTOSHOP "cough" you suck adobe. NEWAY IF WE DONT LIKE IT WE WILL NEVER PAY GO SUCK AN EGG YOU CORPORATE SCUMBAGS YOU DONT NEED ANY MORE OF OUR MONEY MONEY!!!!!!!! Think of it people the new movie of the avengers has already claimed more than 2 billion in profit..... do they really deserve any more????? or how bout microsoft with WINDOWS how many ppl do you know that havnt payed atleast $200 to them 200 x even 1 billion is way more money than they EVER deserved PIRACY IS A GODDAMN BALANCE dont let them take that away or one day we will all wake up on planet microsoft in the galaxy google..... and i for one get sick at the thought. check out armored core that where corporate money grabbing will get us... the destruction of our fine planet so stand up b4 it is too late fight for internet piracy it isnt theft ITS A PREVIEW DAMNIT...

Re: WTF is wrong with the world

Relax brother: when push comes to shove, we'll just pirate more.

It's really funny: people say that "We, the Pirates" ruin their lives when we aren't even part of them from the beginning. They say that, when we don't buy and copy, they lose a sale.... when most of "Us, the Pirates", aren't part of the intended market. Example is pirating a game that isn't released outside Japan or the US by someone outside it.

has there been any denial from this judge? has anything actually happened to get the court/judge to overturn this decision? has the Pirate Party tried to fight back in any way, shape or form? has any official complaint even been registered at this judges behaviour and his 'other' interests?

It would only count as a conflict of interest...

Re: It would only count as a conflict of interest...

Corruption is the right word, corruption isn't limited to direct financial gain. Judge Chris Henson's ruling was a result of his links to copyright industry lawyers and his activities in that field (of which he had financial gain).

There was no fair trial, there was no neutral judge, there was only a corrupt judge who was going to rule in favor of the copyright lobby BREIN, no matter what.

spellink

Water Wet.
Sky Blue.
The legal system is the best you can buy.
If you have money you can avoid having your own record looked at and demand poor people face charges.
You can buy a police investigator with a high paying job on your team, use him as a consultant on the "evidence" he gathered while he was waiting for the job to start, and then let him go with a nice severance package.
And this is all legal.

Re:

Re:

Conflict of intersts and corruption mean the same to me and I couldn't care less about what the law says. In the environment area I had an example of a higher up in one Governmental agency step down of her position because her husband started a business in an area she was directly involved. That's being transparent and honest. This Dutch judge is corrupt in my views. In the first case (FTD) I'd say he might have ignored the fact that his activities might seem in conflict with his participation in the case but after the initial concerns were raised he should have stepped down from this case. Even if there isn't any conflict of interests at all this is how the public perceives it and the proper course of action would be to hand the case down to another judge. I do agree that it can be just some innocent class, impartial and unbiased but I won't hold my breath waiting for any clarification from the guy.

Netherlands

> Don't they have conflict of interest rules in the Netherlands?

A lot of things in the Netherlands are quite incestuous, politicians and corporations for instance, and semi government organizations where ex-politicians land high paid cozy jobs paid for by the tax payer. There is a lot of conflict of interest all around.

I wasn't so much aware of this in the legal branch, but had already noticed that many judges appear to be rather incompetent (which was also my first thought when hearing about this judge's ruling imposing censorship).

As a matter of fact, personally and being Dutch, I think that indeed the rules governing conflicts of interest are very very weak in the Netherlands. This is especially damning for a country that wants to think of itself as adhering to high moral standards.

Re: Netherlands

As a matter of fact, personally and being Dutch, I think that indeed the rules governing conflicts of interest are very very weak in the Netherlands. This is especially damning for a country that wants to think of itself as adhering to high moral standards.

Don't be too upset. We have judges here in the US who were former representatives of MAFIAA who are ruling on copyright infringement cases too, so corruption and failure to honorably recuse yourself from a potential conflict of interest seems to be a universal problem (at least on Earth.) Even our politicians gladly scoop up millions while failing to report their campaign receipts and accepting funny money to cover up their mistresses.